A History of Gardens 6 - Avant Gardening in the Twilight of a Millennium

This online course from the Gardens Trust will be suitable for anyone curious about gardens and their stories – whether absolute beginners or those with some garden history knowledge. Running from April 2024 to April 2025, the course aims to help participants recognise important eras, themes and styles in mainly British garden history from the earliest times to today, grasp something of the social, economic, political and international contexts in which gardens have been created and find greater pleasure in visiting historic gardens. You can sign up for whole series or dip into individual talks. There will be opportunities to discuss issues with speakers after each talk, and short reading lists for further exploration.

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A HISTORY OF GARDENS 6: The Recent Past

Our final series of A History of Gardens will consider developments of the recent past. Starting with the arrival of the sleek, functional style of Modernism after the first world war, the talks will move on to explore contemporary thinking on the challenges of conserving and restoring historic parks and gardens, the rise of ecological perennial planting, the reappearance of allusive gardens and how a garden’s ‘spirit of place’ can guide sustainable plans for the future.

Themes and exemplars in garden-making are more difficult to identify without the benefit of distance and time. But considering recent ideas and approaches is bound to bring a thought-provoking end to our History of Gardens.

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This ticket is for this individual talk and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire fifth series of 5 talks in our History of Gardens Course at £35 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards.

Ticket sales close 4 hours before the talk.

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk (If you do not receive this link, please contact us). A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks .

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Talk 1. 29 April: Modernism with Katie Campbell. First in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Talk 2. 6 May: Conservation and ‘Restoration’, a Personal View with John Watkins. Second in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25) *****NB this talk will be at the later time of 12 noon*****

Talk 3. 13 May: Ecological Planting Design, a History with Noel Kingsbury. Third in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Talk 4. 20 May: Spirit of Place at Great Dixter with Fergus Garrett. Fourth in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Talk 5. 27 May: Avant Gardening in the Twilight of a Millennium with Patrick Eyres. Last in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

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Talk 5. 27 May. Avant Gardening in the Twilight of a Millennium with Patrick Eyres

Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) coined the term Avant-Gardening, to evoke the process of synthesising art and horticulture at Little Sparta. In the centenary of Finlay’s birth, Little Sparta will be the focus. The allusion and association of Avant-Gardening provides common ground with four other contemporary gardens. Fragility is a parallel theme. Little Sparta (Ian and Sue Finlay), The Garden of Cosmic Speculation (Charles and Maggie Jencks) and Prospect Cottage (Derek Jarman) have survived the death of their creators; the Garden of History (Jim Pierce) and the Driftwood Garden (Brian Yale) have not.

Dr Patrick Eyres is editor and publisher of the unique New Arcadian Journal, in which artists and writers explore the landscape garden. The 56th and penultimate edition is underway. He has also published in numerous other books and journals and taught in the School of Art and Design at Bradford Collage. He served on the boards of the Wentworth Castle Heritage Trust, Leeds Art Fund, Garden History Society and Little Sparta Trust. On behalf of The Gardens Trust, he set up and chaired for the first ten years the annual New Research Symposium in Garden History. He continues to advise on the conservation of Little Sparta.

Image: Apollo, Little Sparta, Photo ©Patrick Eyres, 1999

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